Waste in the environment

What do we actually know about the waste that has emerged with the mass proliferation of disposable menstrual products since the 1950s? In this series, seven interviews provide very different insights around the topic of menstrual waste. This episode is about inadequate disposal. Wastewater expert Bianca Mimietz from Berliner Wasserbetriebe explains the problems associated with pads and tampons flushed down the toilet.

Standup paddleboarding, or SUPing, is first and foremost a recreational activity, a way for people to exercise and relax. But when you’re SUPing on a river or lake you can see many things that don’t belong in the water, and you can reach otherwise inaccessible rubbish. Nejc Gajšek is an environmental activist who has taken a keen interest in the natural world from an early age. In his story he reveals how he and his SUPing community take part in organised events and clean-up campaigns, collecting rubbish, cleaning the environment and trying to encourage others to do the same by documenting their activities and posting them on social media.

What do we actually know about the waste that has emerged with the mass proliferation of disposable menstrual products since the 1950s? In this series, seven interviews provide very different insights around the topic of menstrual waste. This episode is about the EU Directive on single-use plastics , which has been in force since 3 July 2021. Werner Bosmans, who played a key role in its development, talks about why the Directive was created, which products it affects, and explains the "Plastic in product" label.

The river Thames has always been the city’s dumping ground.

From historic waste – like disposable clay pipes, the equivalent of modern cigarette butts – to modern junk – mobile phones, shopping trolleys, and plastic toys – mudlark Lara Maiklem finds all kind of waste that ends up in the river.

What unites this diversity of waste is the action of the mudlarker-looking where society does not normally look and finding meaning and experience amongst society’s detritus.

What does this detritus tell us about the changing nature of our society?

In 2015, (refugee) stories were being written along Europe’s external and internal borders. In 2018, these stories became part of the Volkskundemuseum’s permanent collection. This video seeks to give visual form to the human escape stories and their presence in our museum. Refugees, their stories and their belongings deserve a place in our collections and our collective biography. When they docked in Europe, people had to leave behind many of their valuable, worthless and everyday objects. Some of these objects found their way into our exhibition. Some of the new objects could be seen as ‘waste’ or ‘discarded rubbish’ but, as we show in our permanent collection, we have given them fresh value and visitors considering these objects might ask themselves, ‘What is waste and what is worth keeping?’

The electronic waste dump at Agbogbloshie, in Ghana, is the place in which we hear Lennox Yabidou’s testimony.

Smoke, fumes, lack of equipment and protective clothing: modern waste pickers work under harsh conditions.

In this video, we see the unjust nature of waste colonialism and its environmental damage.

Not only does it provide a reflection on history but it highlights the fact that in Ghana and elsewhere people are finding value and a means of living from what the Western world discards and does not consider to have worth.

Some 22 billion devices are currently connected to the internet. How many exactly? No one knows. It is estimated that, over the course of one minute, we make an average of 6 million Google searches, upload 96,000 photos to Instagram, publish nearly 600,000 new tweets on Twitter, receive 180 million emails in our inboxes, and scroll through around 150,000 Slack messages.

Have you ever wondered where and how all this content is stored? What happens to old emails when they fall to the bottom of your inbox? Unnecessary files, applications, duplicate photos and videos are so-called digital waste, and storing this waste generates enormous demand for electricity.

It is estimated that information and communications technology, which consists of your computer hardware, smartphones, printers, VR headsets, satellites and the entire infrastructure that provides internet connectivity, is responsible for 620 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year.